Genetic testing ground

Richard van Asch, who once farmed in Blenheim’s Awatere Valley, jokes that he used to think the Awatere Valley was the driest place in New Zealand, but he has found somewhere even drier.

The 473ha property on the outskirts of Christchurch, where he and wife Denise have been for the past five years with their Burtergill Red South Devon and Aschwood Black South Devon studs, was land that once formed the riverbed of the nearby Waimakariri River.

This unforgiving property, which is part of Informing New Zealand Beef’s Commercial Herds programme, is proving to be a good testing ground for Richard and Denise’s 150 South Devon stud cows and their progeny and 600 breeding ewes, all of which need to be able to perform with minimal inputs.

“It does test the cows,” says Richard. “While they are pedigree cows they have to perform, there is no babysitting.”

Data informs every decision the couple make in their cattle enterprise. The couple has been measuring every trait possible to measure, and more recently they have been genomically testing every animal as they believe this gives them a better picture of an entire age group rather than just cherry-picking the best cattle.

“The more data you have the more confident you can be that what you think will occur will actually occur. You can change an animal quite dramatically by just concentrating on its estimated breeding values (EBVs) and genomic data.”

Richard takes his annual leave at calving and lambing, so it is a busy time as calves are tagged and weighed at birth, and lambing ewes are shepherded.

As share partners in the international Leachman Profit Cattle Evaluation programme, the couple is able to benchmark their animals against purebred and crossbred cattle both in New Zealand and internationally.

“It takes one figure, the Leachman Dollar Profit, that compares all cattle and how they stack up in the real world.”

Richard says in this international index, they have had an animal in the top 5% and an animal in the bottom 5%, but it gives them an idea of where their genetics sit compared to other breeds. He strongly believes that the more they can measure and compare then the more informed their breeding decisions will be. Ultimately, it’s about breeding cattle that meet the needs of the market.

Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s Commercial Herd programme

The van Aschs’ hope for the Informing New Zealand Beef (INZB) programme is the development of a set of values that farmers can use to make informed decisions, irrespective of breed, driving genetic improvement in the New Zealand beef industry.

“Our belief is that the New Zealand beef industry should have crossbreed traits, objectives and evaluations in the same way we have it in the sheep industry,” says Richard.

“Having a multi-breed analysis for New Zealand would be fairer and more accurate and give more minority breeds the chance to compete on an even footing.”

The more data you have, the more confident you can be that what you think will occur will actually occur. You can change an animal quite dramatically by just concentrating on its estimated breeding values (EBVs) and genomic data. – Richard van Ash, Burtergill Red South Devon and Aschwood Black South Devon

The four main components of INZB are building a New Zealand-based genetic evaluation for comparing bulls of different breeds and data infrastructure, progeny test herds, developing breeding objectives and indexes, and developing new data sources. As part of the INZB programme, the couple is excited about being on the ground floor of the development of a New Zealand-specific genetic evaluation system.

Commercial Herds, of which the majority are not stud herds, play an important part in the programme by recording data that can be incorporated into breeding value prediction. They will also provide increased linkages throughout the beef industry and may contribute to genetic evaluations in time.

Capturing hybrid vigour

While South Devons are now considered a beef breed, historically they were a dual-purpose breed, and their milk and cream were valued as much as their meat. They have retained their ability to produce high volumes of milk and it is this that drives calf growth rates in Richard and Denise’s summer dry environment.

Cows are mated using a combination of artificial insemination (AI) and natural matings, but Richard admits being such a minority breed, South Devons’ genetics are getting increasingly difficult to source.

“The gene pool is limited in New Zealand so we use a lot of US and Australian genetics.”

With a focus on production, Richard says they are torn between two worlds with their South Devon genetics.

English breeders remain very traditional and favour larger cows and high birthweight calves. The US breeders are more production focused and they stabilised the Black South Devon breed based on commercial breeds.

Richard and Denise are moderating the size of their animals, breeding a cow with a smaller frame size without compromising growth rates, and focusing on carcase attributes such as meat yield and intramuscular fat. They are also choosing animals that are homozygous for polling as they aim to eliminate horns from the herd.

The AI programme gets under way towards the end of October and the follow-up bulls go out in early November. They weigh the calves at birth and take mature cow weights at weaning.

The calves are yard-weaned in March and all males, except very obvious culls, are retained and genomically tested.

They are grown out on autumn pasture supplemented with lucerne balage and winter on brassica crops. In September, all the R1 bulls are scanned which gives the couple a clear picture of where their genetics are sitting across that cohort.

Richard believes the South Devons are ideal in a crossbreeding programme, particularly when used across Angus.

Through hybrid vigour, this cross generates an 8% lift in production with a further 23% lift in the F1 generation.

The couple find it frustrating that while commercial farmers have embraced crossbreeding in their sheep flocks, they tend to be more traditional in their approach to cattle breeding.

Finding forages to suit

All heifers are mated as yearlings to a Black South Devon bull because of their low birthweight estimated breeding values (EBVs).

Richard says birthweight has been South Devon’s Achilles heel, a hangover from British farming systems with bigger cows and indoor housing systems and this is something New Zealand breeders have been working hard to address.

Dry heifers are culled at pregnancy testing with the balance calved as two-year-olds, and at weaning, Richard and Denise decide whether to retain her in their breeding herd or sell or prime or store. Richard says they are still getting to know the farm and its variabilities in soil type and soil depth. After questioning productivity differences across the farm, they found there was a six-degree difference in the soil temperature between the back and the front of the farm.

There are pockets of deep silt loam in between light rocky soils, so it is a matter of understanding what pasture species and forage crops will grow in this environment.

The only plants that have proven their worth so far are lucerne, which is grazed by sheep and cut for supplementary feed, and subterrain clover which is endemic in their pastures.

They have 36ha planted in lucerne and will likely increase this area in the future. While they have yet to use the lucerne stands as cattle feed, Richard says they might do so in the future, taking advice from farmers such as Blenheim’s Fraser Avery.

One of the strengths of the farm is that it is early country and because it is so free-draining, they can get crops, such as oats, in the ground early.

Oats are ideal as they germinate in cooler soil temperatures and provide the van Aschs with options about its end use.

Conversely, the farm dries out quickly in summer and it is a gamble trying to second-guess what the seasons are going to do and make management decisions accordingly.

“We don’t have a get-out-of-jail free card,” concludes Richard.

The seven-year INZB partnership is supported by Beef + Lamb New Zealand, the Ministry for Primary Industries and the New Zealand Meat Board. It aims to boost the sector’s profits by $460m over the next 25 years.